The Challengers of the Unknown seems like a concept that would work well on a show like DC's Legends of Tomorrow. Like the team on that show, they spend their time going around the world, investigating anomalies. Since they don't have any super powered abilities or overly fancy costumes, the show wouldn't even have to present a watered down version of the team either, as it sometimes does with other DC heroes. Heck, give them a series of their own!
I believe the Challs are regarded, by most comic book fans and historians, as Silver Age forerunners to the Fantastic Four. And I can easily see why! Professor Hale: primarily a marine biologist; but, evidently a polymath with regard to other scientific disciplines. Rocky Nelson: champion boxer and wrestler. "Red" Ryan: circus-trained acrobat-turned-movie stuntman. And Ace Morgan: versatile aviator.
ReplyDeleteI remember Aquaman teaming up with them for some Silver Age Crisis and Rocky's classic rejoinder to the former's remark about only superheroes responding to the emergency.
"The Challs will match you any day of the week, Super-Fish!"
I can just picture Ben Grimm having said the same thing to Namor. LOL!
Great team-up! This makes perfect sense. Your idea for a Challengers TV series for the exact reasons you outline also make great sense.
ReplyDelete"Time Triangle?"
ReplyDeleteIsn't that the intellectual property of AC Comics? Does this mean, we might see the Challs teaming up with that other FF; FemForce?
I liked the original CotU members a lot more than their later day counterparts. I just wished they could have done more with them. Watching them walk away from their downed plane gave them more of an edge - could someone there have powers and not know it?
ReplyDeleteBetter than Sea Devils and modern day Blackhawks. Wished they could have teamed up with Tommy Tomorrow or Adam Strange for something special.
Silver age science RULED! Even the letter pages could hold your interest. 4 distinct guys and June made it WORK!!
ReplyDeleteI never read much of the Challengers when I was young, but I've sort of gained an interest in recent years, especially since they're who the Fantastic Four were Amalgamated with during the Marvel vs. DC business. I think it would be cool to see them in a "backdoor pilot" on Legends of Tomorrow or Supergirl (the other Arrowverse shows don't seem quite right for it).
ReplyDeleteThe Challengers were done very early in the great silver age. One can only hope that they might be able to be used in Legends of Tomorrow or even in the upcoming Crisis. By rights, EVERYONE should be In the Crisis. So, why not them?
ReplyDeleteHi-Yo Silver Age, Away!!!!!
Is this the cover of the one issue of Super-Team Family I edited during my brief but hellish time as a DC editor? Fun fact: I was supposed to write the Challengers and did write the first four pages of that story. But they were one of my all-time favorite comics and that, coupled with DC reneging on its agreements with me even back then, made me freeze. So I gave the pages to writer Steve Skeates when I became the title's editor.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's from the cover of (the real) STF #8!
ReplyDeleteTony Isabella, as a Black (Haitian) American growing up in the late '70s and '80s, I want to thank you so much for creating Black Lightning, the first AUTHENTIC Black superhero that DC ever published!! Thank You!!
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